X plans to file a legal challenge against the office of the eSafety Commissioner, after the Elon Musk owned social network was ordered to remove a harmful post attacking an Australian queer health expert.
The request was made last week regarding a post vilifying trans rights activist Teddy Cook, who is director of community health at NSW health organisation ACON. Anti-trans commentators on X had taken notice of the Australian following an article about his involvement in a World Health Organisation panel on transgender issues. The article, published by the Daily Mail, suggested Cook was “too smutty” for intergovernmental work.
Elon Musk’s X plans to fight the eSafety commissioner on an order to remove a harmful post.Credit: Bloomberg
The specific post that attracted the attention of the eSafety Commissioner was made by Chris Elston, known on X as Billboard Chris, who has more than 400,000 followers. His nickname comes from his practice of travelling the world wearing billboards featuring anti-trans slogans. In the post, Elston pointedly misgendered and insulted Cook, equated transgender identity with mental illness, and linked to the Daily Mail article.
X confirmed it had complied with an order from the eSafety commissioner to hide the post from Australian viewers, but Elston and other X users posted about the regulatory action, many sharing screen grabs of Elston’s post, ensuring the offending material was more widely viewable in Australia than ever.
Elston said he had refused a request from the eSafety commissioner to remove his original post, and on the weekend X said it planned to lodge a legal appeal to fight the removal notice and “protect its users’ right to free speech”.
Australian trans rights activist and health expert Teddy Cook.
An eSafety spokesperson said it did not issue takedown notices just because people had their feelings hurt or reputations damaged, but only in cases of severely abusive material intended to cause serious psychological or physical harm.
“Tech platforms do not always consistently enforce their own rules or hateful conduct policies, which is why parliament voted to establish the Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme as part of the Online Safety Act 2021 so that eSafety could serve as a safety net for Australian adults facing the most grievous forms of online harassment and abuse,” the spokesperson said.
“The act defines adult cyber abuse as material targeting a particular Australian adult that is both intended to cause serious harm, and is also menacing, harassing or offensive in all circumstances.”